Gregor and the Law of the Lake
by Full of Ennui
Summary: AU to the last chapter of CoC. Chapter 5 is up, the cutters have attacked, and Boots snuck into Gregor's backpack when he left. Certain beloved bats will return from the seemingly-dead, and Gregor will have to help the 10 survivors. But favors are needed.
1. Surprise Suprise!

**Gregor and the Law of the Lake**

A/N: This fanfic is _very_ AU. I was so disappointed with the ending in the book that I decided immediately to go back and mess with the last chapter to make everything go my way. In the book, it just seemed like one of those goody-goody endings where the author goes off preaching "We must all be nice to each other and never fight again and help those who have fallen," to the readers. I was disappointed, I was angry. I was furious. I was enraged. I was _disgusted_.

So, with that in mind, and my book in hand, let's see what the future holds for Gregor and company, and how this goes!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of this chapter except the parts that I have changed to my liking, and I do not own any characters in this story except those who are newbies made up by me or my reviewers (or rather, _future _reviewers).

**Prologue / Chapter 27 **

This is my prologue, but it's Suzanne Collins's 27th chapter, thus the name!)

It was late. Two-fifteen by the clock on the taxi's dashboard. The driver was tired, uncommunicative, and didn't seem to wonder what they were doing hanging out in Central Park at that hour.

When they got to their building, the elevator was broken, so they took the stairs to their apartment. Gregor's mom had to rest every couple of flights. His dad finally gave him the keys and told him to take the girls on ahead. When Gregor opened the door to his apartment, he couldn't believe how small and cramped the place looked. He and Lizzie slumped back on the couch while Boots immediately dumped a basket of plastic animals on the rug and arranged them in a parade. When she came to a little black bat she'd gotten for last Halloween she held it up happily. "Look! Ares!"

Gregor could think of nothing to say as she flew the bat around his head.

His parents came in about ten minutes later, and even though she was dropping from fatigue, his mom went right in to check on his grandmother. That's when Gregor realized she didn't know that Grandma wasn't there. His dad had been waiting until they got home to break the news. "It's her heart, Grace. She's in the hospital. We'll go see her first thing tomorrow," his dad said.

They went straight to bed. Gregor didn't even bother with pajamas. He just stripped right down to his Underland briefs and crawled between his blankets. They had a dusty, familiar smell. A siren went by. Music from a car radio blared then faded. A toilet flushed. The old comforting sounds of New York City lulled Gregor to sleep... (and the altering begins in one word!)

The cave was dark. The flashlights stolen from the museum long dead. Gregor was relying solely on the rats around running beside him. It had been stupid to go this way. Gorger had told him but he hadn't listened. Now they had found him. As he ran he could feel the humans panting behind him so he turned and swung, slashing open several faces. But then his sword was knocked out of his hand, and he was running too fast to retrieve it. He tried to continue again but the floor was crumbling beneath his feet and realized too late that the edge of the cliff was upon him. Then he was falling, falling, falling into a black pit. He waited for his bat to sweep beneath him and carry him away but there was no Ares and he could see the sharp rocks as they rushed up to meet him, feel the agony as they pierced his chest!

Gregor bolted up in bed, heart pounding, sweat-soaked, his right hand clutching his throbbing chest. Had his own voice woken him? No one came running in. No one called his name. The screams of pain must have stayed in his dream.

The falling nightmares that had plagued him growing up had stopped when he'd had Ares. Now they were back again, filled with rats and blood.

Dawn was just breaking over the city. He'd been in bed only a few hours. He knew he should go back to sleep. But the nightmare had been too real. He sank back on his pillow and watched the sunlight brighten until it stung his eyes.

Gregor cracked open his window and took a deep breath of the exhaust-scented air. What day was it? What month was it? He had no idea. He hadn't been home since Hazard's birthday. That had been in the dead of summer. The air was crisp. Suddenly he had an urgent need to know how much time had passed, to ground himself in some kind of reality. The calendar in the kitchen would be worthless, but he could turn on the TV...no, that would wake everybody...He could go down to the corner and check the date on a newspaper. He flung off his blanket and froze as he got his first look at his body in sunlight.

"Oh, geez," he said. He knew he'd gotten beat up pretty bad in the Underland, but things healed up and you moved on. Only he hadn't accounted for the accumulation of scars that dated all the way back to his earlier visits. Marks left by squid suckers, vines, pinchers, teeth, claws. Then there were the wounds he'd made on his hands when he'd broken Sandwich's sword less than a day ago. His skin was like a map where you could trace all the terrible things that had happened.

The Underlanders had given him more of that fish ointment. Maybe it would help. But some of these things...like the five claw marks the Bane had left on his chest...They were going nowhere fast. They were part of him forever. How could he ever explain them? Say he'd been in a car wreck? Fallen through a plate-glass window? Wrestled a pack of tigers? If he couldn't explain them, he'd have to hide them. Forget the beach, forget gym class, and forget even going to the doctor unless he was on death's doorstep. A doctor wouldn't accept some lame excuse. He'd want answers, and the truth would land Gregor in a mental ward.

Gregor dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants, both of which seemed too short. He'd done quite a bit of growing in...in however long he'd been gone. He pulled on his socks and his only Overland footwear, a pair of dress shoes he'd gotten for the spring concert. His toes felt cramped and they looked stupid with his outfit. He wanted those great sneakers Mrs. Cormaci had sent him but they'd been ruined in the war.

He left quietly, but as he passed Mrs. Cormaci's apartment, the door opened. She had alwaysy been an early riser. "So. You stayed in one piece," she said, looking him up and down critically. "Your pants are too short. Want some French toast?"

Gregor followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she made breakfast. She filled him in on his grandma's condition. "She's not doing too well, Gregor. She's in intensive care. If your mother has some idea about taking her on a road trip to Virginia, well, that just isn't going to happen."

She piled the thick slices of challah bread fried in egg batter on Gregor's plate and placed a platter of bacon in front of him. "I don't see how we can stay here," he said, pouring syrup on the toast. "Maybe she'll just take us kids." It would be awful breaking up the family again, though. They'd just gotten back together.

"Maybe. So, what's been going on with you, mister?" Mrs. Cormaci asked.

Gregor thought about all that had happened since he'd last been home. All he'd seen and done. He couldn't form any of it into words.

"Cat got your tongue?" asked Mrs. Cormaci. "It's okay. You don't need to tell me or anyone else about it unless you feel like it." She dipped a piece of bacon into his syrup and chewed it thoughtfully. "You know, Mr. Cormaci fought in a war. He didn't want to talk about it, either. I knew there'd been some terrible things, though. That man had bad dreams until the day he died."

"One woke me this morning," said Gregor.

"It won't be the last," said Mrs. Cormaci. "Want some juice?" She poured him a glass without waiting for him to answer. "It's like this. You spend your whole childhood hearing about being nice to other people and how hurting someone's a crime, and then they ship you off to some war and tell you to kill. What's that going to do to your head, huh?"

"Nothing good," Gregor said.

"You'll be all right, though, Gregor," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"I don't know. In my dream, I fell to my death," said Gregor. "I used to have falling dreams before, but this was the first time I hit bottom."

"Don't worry. If you hit bottom, there's a whole lot of people here to help you up," said Mrs. Cormaci.

"Help me up?" Gregor thought. "Wipe me up is more like it. Nothing left to help once you hit those rocks." And even if people wanted to help, Gregor was alone in his dreams. No one could help him there.

While he ate, Mrs. Cormaci found a pair of old sneakers that had belonged to one of her sons about twenty years ago. They weren't exactly in style but they fit pretty well and looked better than the dress shoes.

"You're going to need new clothes for school," she said.

"Has it started already?" he asked.

"Weeks ago," she said. "We're halfway through October, Gregor."

"I didn't know," he said.

The morning was spent watching his sisters while his parents and Mrs. Cormaci went to the hospital. While Lizzie and Boots ate breakfast, Gregor stood at the kitchen window watching the neighborhood kids go off to school. He thought of his friends Larry and Angelina and wondered what they must make of his disappearance. Did they think he had moved? Was sick? Part of him wanted to see them badly and another part never wanted to see them again. He had been through so much, changed so much, that the idea of hanging out with them and pretending everything was back to normal seemed impossible.

His parents got back around lunch. The visit had been a shock to his mom. No one could say when his grandmother would be able to leave the hospital, and even then she'd probably have to go to some kind of nursing home with full-time medical care.

"Can I see her?" asked Gregor.

"Not now, son. Maybe when she's stronger," said his dad.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Gregor. "About Virginia?"

"I don't know. We'll work it out," said his dad.

"I don't want to go to Virginia," said Lizzie, and they all looked at her in suprise.

"But you said you did, Lizzie," said their mom. "You were the first one packing when I mentioned it."

"I don't want to go anymore. This is our home. I don't want to run away," said Lizzie. "Ripred says that if you run from things that scare you they just chase you."

"What about you, Gregor?" asked his dad.

Gregor tried to imagine living in Virginia. Tried to imagine staying here. "It doesn't matter. I don't care where we live. Either way, it won't be where I want to live, and that place is out of the question!" Gregor looked at his family, his sisters looking almost like they were about to announce that they were agreeing with him, his father looking petrified, and his mother shocked into silence. "I'm going for a walk."

He didn't plan where he was going, but instead he let his feet carry him wherever they wanted. He ended up in Central Park, but somehow, he had already known that he was going to.

Gregor sat down and leaned against the rock that covered the passageway to the Underland. He was careful not to shift it so that no one else at the park would know that the passageway existed.

_Why did everything have to be so complicated? It was as though everyone had decided to pile all of the important stuff on his shoulders. Where should they live? Why?_

And then, out of the blue, as the sky began to darken, Gregor felt it. A small tapping on the rock he was leaning against. The passageway.

He began translating it into alphabet from taps, clicks, and scratches he had learned only a few days ago.

GREGOR. NOWE. UENQ.

Then he applied Lizzie's Code of Claw, and he got this message.

GREGOR. MOVE. TEMP.


	2. Unrecognizable

**Chapter 1**

Gregor leapt away from the rock, but as he began to help pull it open for Temp to climb through, he heard an urgent hissing.

"Overlander, stop, Overlander! Her fingers, you will break, her fingers!"

Gregor stopped immediately, shocked, and cried out, "Temp? Luxa?"

The giant cochroach stuck his head and front body out through the hole, dragging Luxa's limp body with him. The black and white streaked head of a unknown, panting bat appeared under the giant cochroach and Underlander.

"Attacked, have the cutters, attacked!" Temp mumbled, clearly unable to hold Luxa up any longer. Gregor carefully reached out and pulled her the rest of the way out of the tunnel and into his lap, now realizing that she was sporting many cuts and bruises.

"But, Temp, what about the others?" Gregor asked. "You can't be the only ones left?"

Temp shook his head sadly. "Split up, we did, split up. Into many groups, we split, into small groups. But saw us, they did, saw us. Surrounded us, they did, surrounded us. Survived, some did, survived. No contact, they made, no contact. Food gone, we found, food gone. Howard, Trachyte, Aurora, we saw, Luxa, Howard, Trachyte, Aurora. Searched for survivors in the castle, we did, searched for survivors in the castle. Dead bodies, swords, and...a bloody prosthetic leg, we found..." Temp seemed too overcome with grief and days of no sleep to continue repeating his sentence.

_Mareth! He's the only Regalian with a prosthetic leg! And he was my friend, he warned me not to tell everyone that I was going back to the Firelands..._

"Listen, Temp...I'm going to go tell my family that I'm leaving and then come back and take you two back to the castle. You just stay with Luxa in the tunnel and I'll come back. I promise." The giant cochroach nodded, and Gregor slowly lowered Luxa back into the hole with Temp.

Gregor gave Temp one last look of determination before racing off to his building. When he arrived, he flew up the stairs until he was panting at the door of the apartment. He thrust the door open, leaving it ajar, and his mother crossed the apartment angrily.

"Gregor! Where were you? Do you know how late it is?" Her eyes were red and puffy, and Gregor realized how worried she'd been.

His father put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, son, you just have to get used to having parents again."

"No, li-listen!" Gregor gasped. "Luxa – hurt – Temp – war – cutters-"

"Gregor, you probably just fell asleep and dreamt that. Come on in and sit down." His mother attempted to soothed him.

"Oh, yeah? Then what's this?" He held up his palm and showed his mother the dried blood on his hand from Luxa's cuts. His mother held her hand to her mouth, and his father shakily whispered. "You can't think of going back, not when we just got back this morning. Gregor, really, you can't!"

"Well, I am. Mareth is dead. My other friends are out there and I don't even know if Luxa and Temp are still alive! The cutters could have attacked them while they were in the tunnel!" Gregor snarled. His father stared at him in disbelief, but Gregor didn't feel guilty. He was beyond caring and feeling right now. His father opened his mouth to respond, and probably scold him for his outburst, but his mother surprisingly cut him off.

"Honey...let him. You would have done the same thing, wouldn't you?" Gregor took the time to slip off to his room and pack his backpack. Two water bottles, some food, aspirin, painkillers, medicine for cuts, and flashlights. That was all he could risk taking the time to pack. He snuck back out into the main room, where his mother seemed to have convinced his father that Gregor was doing what was right to him.

"Darling..." his mother began. Gregor set his open backpack down on the ground and let his mother finish her goodybye. "Come back as soon as possible, alright? And please, please be safe!" She and his father hugged him. Lizzie ran over to join in too, but Boots was taking a nap.

"Bye, Boots," he whispered in the general direction of her room, zipped up his back pack, and put it on. Wow, he hadn't imagined that it would weigh that much. But it was a large backpack, and he still had plenty of room for anything he needed along the way, so he finally admitted to himself that it was time to go.

Gregor shut the apartment door behind him, then dashed down the stairs and back to Central Park. He pushed the rock aside and threw himself roughly into the passageway.

"Back, you are, back!" Gregor heard a rustling next to him, and used his echolocation to see Luxa and Temp propped up against the slanted wall on the gray bat's back.

"You're Trachyte, right?" Gregor asked the bat as he stepped onto its back and it swooped off into the darkness.

"Correct. You are the former bond of Ares the flier, Overlander?" The bat asked, carefully not using the name "warrior" that most of the Underland creatures had been using on him not a day ago. That had been before he had killed the warrior; the warrior had not been him, it had been Sandwich's sword, really.

"Yes," Gregor whispered, almost unable to speak from grief from losing Ares.

"Very well. It is not as if I did not know you, really. Just attempting to be polite." The bat apologized, understanding Gregor's agony at his previous words. "He will always be remembered. We have realized how great he was due to his last battle, sacrificing himself like that, and so his name was carved into the stone in a wall of the castle before the cutters attacked." Trachyte continued.

_But Ares hadn't given himself up, we had both been trying to get out of there alive. Ares had just gotten in too close with his wings, and then..._ Gregor winced as painful memories of the bat lying, soaked in his own blood, filled his mind. _My bond. My best friend. The only one who trusted me. The only one who knew why I did certain things and why I didn't do others, why I had to get my family out, before the Regalians could change them into war-loving buffoons who just wanted to hack other creatures apart, like Hamnet had tried to save Hazard from._

Gregor busied himself using the medicine he had packed while in the Overland on Luxa's wounds, finding that remembering this past week was killing him. Not literally, of course, like it had been with Ares.

She was so pretty, even as she was unconscious and the cutters had all but torn her skin to shreds. Gregor hoped with all his heart that she would recover. He couldn't lose both his best friend and loyal bond, Ares, _and _Luxa in just several days. It wasn't fair.

And so many others lay dead, too, like Mareth and Solovet and Vikus and Hamnet and Thalia and Pandora...there were countless others who had died while Gregor was in the Underland. Regalia was not always a safe place...in fact, it was _usually_ not a safe place. How could the Underlanders get into so many fights with each other over little and big things alike? It was just crazy, it was, just crazy.

And now _I_'m going crazy, thought Gregor. I'm talking like Temp and the rest of the giant cochroaches...or however many there are left.

As Trachyte swooped out of the tunnel and past the stadium of Regalia, Gregor gasped and clutched his hand to his mouth. There were bodies of bats, humans, mice, rats, ants, and cochroaches everywhere. The whole land surrounding the castle was covered with corpses and carcasses, like a rock had fallen from the sky and crushed all of them, leaving only a few to crawl around and scavenge for food.

"Keep your eyes out for survivors," Trachyte suggested, "We're trying to collect them so that if the cutters attack again, we'll at least have a few people to build Regalia back up after the cutters are gone...or so that if they attack again, we'll have some warriors for battle." Trachyte sounded as irritated as Gregor was at all the fighting going on, but resigned to the fact that it was necessary.

Gregor sighed at Trachyte's words, then stroked the bat's fur, realizing how soft, thin, and fine it was.

"Wow, Trachyte. Your fur is amazing." Trachyte blinked in thanks. "You know– knew– Nike, I am sure?" Gregor pretended not to notice Trachyte wince as he said the bat princess's name.

"Yes, why?" Gregor inquired, confused at the change of conversation.

Trachyte seemed to be doing the bat equivalent of biting his lip, then spoke. "She is– was– my sister."

Gregor gasped. "So you're the prince of the bats? That explains a lot...but Nike's fur is–was– rough, and yours is extra soft?" He asked, still befuddled.

"Yes, well, that is how it works." Trachyte said quietly. Then he tilted his head to the side as little sounds came out of Gregor's backpack, almost like...a baby.

"I'm a pincess, too, Nike and I be pincesses together! Pincesses, pincesses, pincesses, yay!" Gregor slapped his head with the palm of his hand, moaning "Boots..." He unzipped his backpack and there she was, his toddler sister, sitting in his backpack.

"Oh my," Trachyte exclaimed articulately as Boots crawled out and hugged Temp, saying, "Tempy! My buggy!" Gregor sighed and leaned forward to hold Boots as the bat landed in what had once been the famous castle of Regalia, now almost unrecognizable.


	3. 6 Are Still Standing, But Barely

**Chapter 2**

"My gosh," he whispered, voice hoarse. "My gosh...who else survived?" He lifted Boots off of Trachyte, then Luxa. Trachyte gave a bat-ish version of shrugging, lifting both wings into the air sadly.

_Luxa...will she make it? When can I wake her up? Where's Howard when you need him?_ Gregor thought, watching Boots run around the castle, watched wearily by Trachyte._ Of course she'll make it...she's Luxa...she can't die, especially not from this...but all those days in the Firelands _did_ wear her out..._Gregor bit his lip in worry as his thoughts overwhelmed him. He checked his watch to see what time it was. 7:00. Time for Boots to go to bed.

"Bootsy? Wanna hear a bedtime story?" He asked, scooping her up as she raced towards him.

"Story, Gregor, story!"His sister squealed. "Nursery, we go to, nursery!" Gregor blinked. He _knew_ that she'd been spending too much time with Temp and the other cochroaches. She was talking in the giant cochroach's version of English!

"Okay, Boots," he started to walk up the hall to where the nursery was, but Trachyte stopped him.

"No, Overlander, there are still some...matters to be taken care of in the nursery," the giant bat said, giving a pointed look at Boots. Gregor nodded tremulously, and replied, "Of...course, Trachyte."

_They couldn't havee killed the baby mice, they just couldn't! That would be too cruel a punishment, even for the cutters!_ But in his heart, Gregor knew that nothing was to cruel for the cutters. They had once eaten his friend, Hamnet, and attempted to eat him. They would have rejoiced at the opportunity of such little, helpless, meat-covered creatures to gnaw at.

"Gregor..." Trachyte warned, looking at Luxa. She was beginning to wake up, and Boots would not go to bed if Luxa was up. So Gregor gave Boots to Temp, who found her a room in the hospital that had a bed in it for her to sleep in. Temp stayed with her, napping, but Gregor had a feeling that it was also so that he could protect her if danger approached.

"When Luxa wakes up, she will probably be angry at me, so maybe I should leave..." Gregor said to Trachyte, seeking the bat's advice.

"No, Overlander, stay. She will forget her anger when she realizes that you are here to help." Howard limped out of one of the rooms, carrying Hazard, who was asleep.

"You can put him in with Boots and Temp, Howard," said Gregor, relieved to see the teenage doctor-in-training among them. "They are sleeping, too, so he will not be awoken." Howard nodded in thanks and deposited the little boy in the hospital room with his best friends, then returned to the main hall and hugged Gregor tightly.

"Gregor...you came," he whispered, eyes full of gratitude, "We didn't think you would."

Gregor looked at his friend. "I would have come even if I knew exactly what has happened here, Howard. I care." He smiled, then frowned again. "Where is Nike?"

Howard winced. The princess bat was his bond, and bonds had to swear to one another to protect one another, in life or death, peril or not. "We have not found her yet. But we will."

"You will." Gregor affirmed. "She is a strong bat. I'm sure she made it." Well, not really. Mareth didn't, and he was strong. But then again, he had one prosthetic leg. And suddenly, remembering his dead friend, Gregor had an unexplainable, yet somehow inevitable, feeling that everything was going to be okay.

"Attack on the left side! Run for the nursery!" Howard suddenly shouted, as Trachyte flapped off to go into the hosital to pick up the children, and ants were visible scaling the wall of the castle, going for the high windows to get in.

"Boots! Hazard!" Gregor was terrified for them. But as he ran after the bat, Howard grabbed him by his waist and stopped him.

"Trachyte will get them. Get Luxa, for heaven's sake!" The Regalian princess was beginning to wake up, and Gregor seized her wrists and dragged her to her feet, talking to her.

"Luxa, we have to run!" He said urgently, pulling her after him. She kept stumbling, blinking her eyes in confusion.

"Gregor...? What's going on?" Her eyes widened as she saw the cutters pouring in through the window, and a large bat swooping through the castle– Trachyte. "Oh no."

Gregor tugged her harder as they fought to get towards the door of the nursery, Howard a few steps ahead. But the cutters would get in after them immediately, tearing apart the door. Just as Gregor began to give up hope, Luxa pointed towards the passageway blearily.

"Maybe we escape through tunnel, Greggy," she said, making Gregor eye her in concern. She really _had_ hit her head hard when she had finally fallen, hadn't she? But Gregor directed the others towards the stone turtle, pressing the part of its mouth that would open it. He stepped back to let the prince bat with the little kids fly in, then Howard went down, and Gregor helped Luxa get to where Howard was.

As Gregor climbed, he thought he heard a clinking on the ground above his head. He pulled the stone turtle closed, shutting out all light, and realized something. He heard the steady breathing of not 6, but 7 creatures. As he came to this realization, something warm and rough brushed against his hand. He recoiled instantly, losing his grip on the ladder. This caused him enough panic to let go with his other hand, reaching into the darkness for a hold, but in vain, as he fell. It was a good 30 feet until the bottom of the ladder, and even then there was a 5 foot drop.

Gregor didn't even have enough breath to scream as the darkness clutched at him and drew him in, wrapping him in a cocoon of intolerable pain.


	4. Darkness, Wishes of Death, and ZodiacBat

**Chapter 3**

"Gregor! Gregor!" Voices said above him, but darkness still enclosed him. If this was heaven, then he'd hate to see hell. The voices above him were extremely annoying, and made Gregor wish he could go back to being unconscious.

Then again, how did he deserve to be in heaven? More likely, this was hell. Yes, this was what he had earned. A nice, long, never-ending detention in this dark pit.

"Gregor! I can hear you mumbling! Now if you don't open your eyes, I'll hit you!" Gregor ignored the voices, and something hard connected with his head.

"Luxa!" An older voice yelled, clearly irritated. "If you kick him in the head when that's where he has a wound, you could give him head trauma from blood in the brain!" The voices stopped, and then the older one continued, voice becoming a little lower. "If you haven't already."

It became very quiet, but as Gregor listened more, he thought he heard a sniffling sound. The older voice sounded sympathetic now, as it comforted the other voice.

"Oh, Luxa, he's not going to die! Well, if he _did_ have head trauma then he would, but I don't think he does..."

"But what if he does? What if he has mental problems because of it?" Yup, that was definitely sobb– wait a second! Did that guy just say _Luxa_? That thought made Gregor pop both of his eyes wide open and stare around. Not that it helped him much, it was still as dark as midnight.

If Luxa was here, then she was dead too. And that thought made Gregor angry. Luxa didn't deserve to die! He was the one who earned his death and to forever reside in hell, he was the one who had been killing all those rats and everything! So maybe this was heaven after all. Luxa wasn't a devil; she was an angel.

"Luxa?" Gregor asked, sitting up. The princess squealed mid-sob, jumped to her feet, and hugged him ferociously, saying his name.

"Luxa? Why are we dead?" Gregor asked, trying to see in the darkness after she released him, a few seconds later– or perhaps it was a few hours– or even a couple of sunlit days–

Luxa eyed him worriedly, he could see that much, her violet eyes glinting even in the blackness. She seemed to grab something next, by the sound of her jacket rustling.

"Gregor...are you alright?" The shape asked, and Gregor could see its own violet eyes gazing down at him. Gregor made an incredulous face, and threw his hands up in the air, even though he noticed after that the others couldn't see that.

"How could I be alright? I'm dead, aren't I? And who are you?" Gregor inquired, peering up at the face. He then coughed, and realized who it was. The Overlander in question had completely forgotten about his newly found echolocation skills that Ripred had taught him.

"Howard? You're dead too?" Gregor asked, slightly surprised. Then another voice rasped from the darkness.

"Alright, Overlander, listen carefully. Lean in closer in case you don't hear. It's a secret." Gregor, sensing that it was Trachyte with his echolocation, stepped forward, turning his ear towards the bat's mouth. However, the next few words were not what he had expected nor as polite as the bat seemed to be.

"_WE. ARE. NOT. DEAD_!" The bat yelled, making Gregor's ear hurt. He mumbled something under his breath that Gregor guessed that he probably didn't need to, or want to, hear.

"Oh really. Then why did I just go through a dark tunnel and find an beautiful angel at the top?" Gregor asked impertinently, using the tone of voice that he had often used, before his father was kidnapped, to justify his actions to his parents.

But the bat just snickered, turning away. Howard was hard put not to laugh, and Luxa was blushing.

"Yeah...Gregor, um, well, you _did_ have your eyes open earlier." Howard said, hiding his face from Gregor in fear that once he realized what he was saying, he might yell at them for laughing. This confused Gregor. Then he thought of the first face he had been able to see, and it dawned on him.

"Oh no, you don't mean–?" Gregor asked, waving his hands in the air hopelessly.

"Well, erm, Gregor, she _was_ standing right above you, you know." Howard was almost giggling now, clutching his sides in pain from laughing so hard, despite the current situation.

"But...but..." Gregor said helplessly, carefully avoiding Luxa's eyes. "Surely it was just...a dream...or we really are dead?" He said this with such obvious desperation that Trachyte began howling in chuckles.

"Overlander, I have never met someone who had such an intense desire to be deceased. Though, of course, I have never really known someone who liked Luxa. At all. I mean, not even anyone who was neutral–" The bat had to stop as Luxa turned towards him in mock anger, showing him her pale fist close-up. Gregor sighed and gave up part of his fight.

"So what? Anyone could have looked like an angel." Howard raised his eyebrows, Gregor could tell by clicking at him and hearing the sound bounce off.

"Well, Gregor, you did say 'beautiful angel,' if I am correct. And I doubt that anyone would describe either I or Trachyte as beautiful, so I am afraid you must concede to this fight." Howard seemed to be in a jolly good mood, so Gregor finally gave in.

"Alright...maybe it was Luxa...maybe..." Gregor heard Howard snigger again, and glared at him playfully.

"Okay, man, okay. Fine. But why are you in such a good mood?" Gregor asked, punching his older friend's arm lightly as Luxa went over to check on the little kids. They were still asleep.Well, they had been expecting nothing out of the ordinary-Regalian Underlander-war-day.

"Well, another bat was in here." Howard began. Gregor started to ask a question, but was silenced by a gesture from Howard. "It was Nike. Apparently after I fell off, she searched for me. But when she didn't find me, she was too tired to hold herself up and fell into a hole which led into this tunnel. When she had rested, she walked up this way, and brushed against you. That made you lose your grip on the ladder, and she caught you before you hit the ground." Gregor listened in shock, and Luxa shuffled towards the other side of the tunnel.

"So _that_'s what that was..." Gregor murmured, tongue in cheek, eyes narrowed as he thought deeply. But if that was Nike, then where was she now? Before he could ask, Howard answered.

"She's looking for survivors on the warfield. Maybe they'll find someone who's important..." Yet Howard looked guilty as he said this. Gregor raised an eyebrow, but decided that Howard was telling the truth. After all, he was never much of person to lie, even if it would make someone feel better.

Suddenly, the said bat swooped in.Trachyte stood up to greet her, and Gregor could tell that he was happy to see her, no matter how much he had tried to disguise his grief earlier.

"Nike? You found Miravet? And...Lukavet?"Trachyte asked in astonishment and awe as she gently dumped two Underlanders onto the tunnel floor. Gregor gaped as he stood staring at the humans.One, a woman, had brown hair and brown eyes. Gregor had met her before, when she had given him his armor. The second, a man, looked exactly the same.

Trachyte glanced over at Gregor, smiling slightly. "What, Solovet never told you about her sister's twin brother?" Gregor shook his head, realizing just how much Solovet had kept concealed from him. Then Nike dropped a bat onto the stone floor, and Gregor gasped.

_This can't be.Or, no, this proves that we're all dead. I saw him die. I was _there_. This is all just being dead and finding one another again._

But that couldn't be true, because, as Gregor rushed to the bat's side, he knew that he could never have imagined this. Because even his unconscious mind couldn't have remembered that this bat had one missing claw.


	5. A Favor Requires Broken Promises & Sword

**Chapter 5**

-----------LATER THE NEXT DAY-----------

Ares lay on the floor of the cave nearby, asleep. Lukavet was sitting against the tunnel wall, resharpening the blade of a sword. The others were out, scavenging for more swords, armor, and food. Gregor was still letting his head recover from his fall, and so had been told to stay behind and sleep, but watched in amazement as Lukavet transformed the blunt sword into the sharpest thing he had ever seen in just a few minutes.

"Gregor...I have something for you. Luxa ordered me to fix this up for her, but instead I made a fake. I told her that it was the real one, and hid this one from her sight. I think that it belongs to you." Lukavet put aside the sharpened sword and gestured for Gregor to come closer, then drew out of the armor he wore a carefully wrapped bundle. Gregor opened it curiously, and then stared at what it held. Sandwich's broken sword. "I thought it might mean something to you."

Gregor bit his lip in thought, and then spoke, looking around to make sure didn't wake Ares, or that no one was back yet. "Lukavet...I have a favor to ask you. For you, it will be a simple, everyday task. But for me, it will require secrecy, and a lot of promise breaking– to myself, and others."

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**A/N: Sorry it's so short, people, but I had a good cliffhanger on Chapter 4, a good cliffhanger for Chapter 5, but nothing to write inbetween. I know this is lame, but come on, you gotta love the suspense:D Also, the space key on my computer doesn't work very well right now, so don't bother to tell me if two or three words are connected together incorrectly. ;)R&R, people, R&R. Meaning you read and review, and I rest and relax. :D**


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